


At Least I Did One Thing Right

by allantwitty



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Retail, Castiel Has a Crush on Dean Winchester, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Mistletoe, Pining, Pining Castiel, Retail, dean and cas bonding over retail killing their souls, general holiday season backdrop, rude customers, somehow mothman is involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 14:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13459944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allantwitty/pseuds/allantwitty
Summary: “Good to know I’m not the only one whose soul has died here,” Cas says quietly, playing with the paper on his water bottle, and it’s – it’s not anicesentiment to share, by any stretch of the imagination; it’s actually pretty damn sad – but it somehow feels like it’s tying them together, into something unbreakable.Dean laughs softly and looks at Cas, in a way that seems almost significant. He looks at him in a way that makes Cas’s breath shallow, a way no one haseverlooked at him. Like he sees something worthwhile, something that makes him want to stay.Cas’s heart is beating too fast.





	At Least I Did One Thing Right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madnexx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madnexx/gifts).



> this is so, so, so, so belated, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATALIE. you're amazing and i love you and i hope you enjoy this crappy fic that took me way too long to write (sorry again). i adore you and thank you for everything. happy birthday even though it was almost a month ago ♥

                Castiel is pretty amused, listening to this.

                “I’m tellin’ you, man, he’s _real_ ,” he hears Ash say heatedly. He’s drunk, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping him from pleading his case to the rest of the people in the bar right now – mostly associates from the store letting off steam after a long day. “I’ve seen him with my own – _hiccup_ – my own two eyes.”

                “Nuh-uh,” Charlie says, too loud. “You’d be dead if you saw him.”

                “Why would you be dead?” the most recognizable voice asks, deep and with a little more twang than usual, something that always happens when he’s been drinking. And Cas can’t believe that he knows that.

                “He kills you,” she replies, like it should be obvious. “Or maybe you’re just like, so paralyzed with fear that you just keel over. I don’t know. Either way, if you saw him you’re dead.”

                “I _did_ see him,” Ash insists. “On the bridge.”

                “What brid – are you talkin’ about the damn _picture_?” Dean says incredulously.

                “Wait, hold up,” Victor cuts in, and Cas can picture him at their table, putting his hand up in an impatient gesture and shaking his head. “Who the fuck are we talking about?”

                “Mothman, idiot. Pay attention.”

                “Don’t call me an idiot, stupid.”

                “Ash,” Dean insists, like his thought process isn’t over regarding the whole picture thing. “You can’t use a picture someone _else_ took as proof that you saw him.”

                “Yeah. You’d be dead if you saw him,” Charlie repeats, like she’d never said it in the first place. They should probably stop drinking and call it a night already, in Cas’s opinion.

                “Mothman doesn’t kill you,” a new voice says – Kevin – sounding bored out of his mind. And really sober. Cas assumes he’s their driver tonight.

                “Then what does he do?”

                Kevin sighs, loud enough for Cas to hear him from the bar. “He’s like, an omen. He –”

                “Oh my God, _yes_ ,” Charlie exclaims, and Cas imagines her curly red hair bouncing with her as she gets excited. “I forgot! You see him when something like, really bad is about to happen.”

                “So maybe Ash _did_ see him?” Dean says. “I mean, there’s no other explanation for that haircut.”

                Cas snorts and shakes his head. Asshole.

                The whole table erupts in laughter.

                “What’s that supposed to mean?” Ash says, sounding dramatically hurt, as usually only a drunk person can do.

                “What about the Jersey Devil?” Charlie says, interrupting the noise.

                “What about it?”

                “Fake.”

                “Just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you know everything about everything, Kevin.”

                “Hey, if the Jersey Devil is fake why isn’t Mothman?”

                “The two aren’t mutually exclusive, Charlie. You can believe one exists and not the other,” Kevin says, and it’s a little amusing listening to his flat, sober voice try to explain something to a group of drunk people. “And I never said Mothman was real, just what people say about him. He’s fake too.”

                “Why are we even talking about these things anyway?” Victor asks. “We sound like fucking dorks.”

                “If we really want to sound like dorks we could talk about the snallygaster,” Dean says.

                “The _what_?” the whole table shouts.

                And Cas, inexplicably, feels his chest stumble, like a misstep of his heartbeat.

                Because Dean _is_ a dork – he knows what a _snallygaster_ is – and it’s so stupidly endearing that it makes Cas _hurt_. He just wants to be able to talk to him, to tell him _Hey, I know what a snallygaster is too so maybe we’re soulmates want to go out sometime_?

                But Cas is certain this night will end like all the others. He’ll continue to creepily listen to Dean’s conversation with his friends, and Dean will continue to not know he exists, and Cas will go home alone without having been able to do absolutely anything about his ridiculous crush.

                ***

                It’s a slow day today. It’s the middle of the day during the middle of the week – a time that doesn’t usually see many customers. The most common ones that Cas sees at this time are retired old people who can somehow drop over $500 in one trip and kids from the high school around the corner trying to inconspicuously skip class by hiding out here.

                Two women walk up to Cas’s register around noon, halfway through his shift, and set down only one item – a big three-piece reversible quilt set. He scans it and the price comes up, as it does.

                “$139.99,” he tells them. “It’s also buy one, get one –”

                “No, not that one,” the shorter one interrupts, her voice sharp as a knife. “That one’s 60% off.”

                Cas looks at the screen and it hasn’t miraculously changed – it’s still $139.99, buy one get one half off.

                “Um, this particular one is ringing up as –”

                “The sign on these said _60% off_ ,” she interrupts again.

                Cas never knows what to say here. ‘Okay, let me just take your word for it and give this expensive item to you for over half off’? He could get fired for doing that.

                “Um, I’ll have to call Home and get a price check,” he says instead. And he remembers who’s working Home right now as the words are coming out of his mouth, and he feels himself getting _stupidly_ excited.

                “This is ridiculous,” the woman says to her friend, and Cas stares at her for a moment. What’s ridiculous? That it’s ringing up differently than what she saw? That a _minor_ mistake may have been made? That it might take her a minute longer to be rung up? Seriously – he wants to know.

                She’s really quick to get straight to ‘ridiculous’, he notices. Almost like she knew there would be a problem. Almost like she knew this would happen.

                No, of course not.

                He picks up the phone after a beat and sighs quietly before paging and speaking into it. “Home, call 216. Home, 216.”

                He smiles politely at her while they wait for the phone to ring. She doesn’t smile back.

                “I’m getting annoyed now,” she says, getting shriller as time goes on. “The sign said 60% off.”

                “I understand that, but I can’t just change the price – I have to get a price check from –”

                The phone rings, saving Cas from having to continue to placate her.

                “Hello?” And he knows what voice he’s about to hear in the ensuing silence.

                “Hey, what’s up?” Dean says casually, and Cas can hear him shuffle in the background, like he’s in the middle of something and dropped everything just to talk to Cas (which he literally has to do, because it’s his _job_ , but anyway.)

                Cas hates the way his heart is suddenly racing, his hands are suddenly sweaty, and his face is suddenly flushed.

                “Um, hi, I – I need a price check on a, um… three-piece reversible quilt set.”

                “What’s it coming up as?”

                “$139.99, but she says the sign said it was 60% off.”

                “Okay,” he sighs. “Let me check. I’ll call you back.”

                “Okay.” A pause as he hangs up. “He’ll call back with the price in a minute.”

                “It’s 60% off,” she says yet again. “I should be getting it for free. That’s what they do down at Sloan’s. If the sign is wrong, you get it for free.”

                _This isn’t a grocery store_ , Cas wants to say. _This item is almost $150. You’re probably going to end up getting it for over half off. Why are you like this. Grow up._

Dean calls back a minute later as they continue to talk about how annoyed they are.

                “Hey, the sign says $139.99,” he says. “I don’t know where she got 60% off from.”

                “Um,” Cas says, because he’s a little bit afraid for his life when he has to tell her. “O-okay. I –”

                “What’s he saying?”

                “He says the sign says $139.99…” He trails off as he hangs up the phone, and she immediately marches away from the register, heading toward the Home department.

                “Okay, this is ridiculous. Now I’m – I’m mad now,” she says, pausing on her way, gesturing angrily with her hands, because she _has_ to tell the general vicinity how upset she is about this thing they have absolutely no control over.

                Cas sighs and bites his lip, unsure of what to do. He should probably stay at the register, but… he could also follow her.

                Being yelled at by an old lady together sounds like an excellent bonding experience, in Cas’s humble opinion.

                “Do you want to finish with my customer,” Tessa from the register in front of him says, “and I’ll go help her out?”

                “No, I’ll go,” Cas says neutrally, like he’s doing her a _favor_ , even though what he’s thinking is a hysterical flashing neon sign saying DEAN DEAN DEAN.

                “You understand why she’s mad, don’t you?” the woman’s friend says before he gets the chance to follow her. “The sign clearly said it was 60% off. I saw it, too. You shouldn’t have let him hang up.”

                “I understand,” he says, voice devoid of sympathy. “I’ll – I’ll go see. Excuse me.”

                He walks quickly to catch up with her, checking each section of the department until he spots the woman, Dean standing behind her. Dean’s face shifts when he sees Cas walk up, which Cas is too frazzled to decipher at the moment.

                “He changed the sign,” she insists, harsh and quick. You can’t make this shit up, can you?

                “I didn’t – the sign says $139.99,” Dean says, raising his hands in a helpless gesture. “It always has, I didn’t change anything.”

                “Then why did I see 60% off?”

                Cas walks up and looks at the sign himself, then spots something out of the corner of his eye as Dean continues to coddle her and try to ease her temper.

                “Here’s the 60% off sign,” Cas says, pointing to the section adjacent to the one holding her quilt sets. “It looks like it applies to these quilts, right here.” He points to the bedding right underneath it. “These are 60% off, not the one you got.”

                “Well I got it _right here_. It was _in_ the section marked 60% off, so _that’s_ what you need to honor,” she demands.

                “I understand that, but the one you got was in the wrong section, most likely because there wasn’t any room left with the others like it,” Dean tells her calmly.

                “This is absolutely ridiculous.”

                “Ma’am –” Cas starts, before Dean interrupts him with a light hand on his arm. Cas’s lips part in surprise and his chest overhauls, and he suddenly can’t breathe.

                “Just give her the 60% off,” Dean says, to Cas only, his voice kinder than Cas has ever heard it be.

                In the rational part of his brain, the part that’s still functioning, Cas wants to protest. Because he hasn’t taken to this store’s policy to give angry people whatever they want yet. People that cause a scene just to get free stuff. He doesn’t think Dean has either, but he also knows they both want to keep their job, and this woman’s tirade isn’t worth enough to fight.

                “Okay,” Cas says simply.

                She walks away without saying another word, and Cas watches her for a second before turning his eyes back to Dean, both of them looking uncertain.

                “You didn’t have to come all the way back here,” Dean says, already turning away, which Cas takes as a polite dismissal.

                “Um, well, thanks,” he says quietly, before sighing and leaving.

                His arm is still tingling.

***

                “’This is ridiculous.’ Why is it always ridiculous? Why not… I don’t know, some other word?”

                Cas chuckles under his breath, still in disbelief that this is actually happening. That Dean is actually talking to him. “I-I don’t know.”

                “They could say, like, ‘this is preposterous’. Or ‘this is ludicrous’. But no, it’s always ‘this is ridiculous’. You know how many times I’ve been told that something is _ridiculous_ since I started working here? Why can’t they get more creative?”

                “I think you’re right,” Cas says, struggling to think of rational responses to what Dean’s saying. He’s struggling to _breathe_.

                “It’s like all the bitter old ladies that go shopping with the intent to make a scene just so they get something for free all had a meeting and decided to use the word ridiculous as their team’s catchphrase.”

                “She –” he starts, before losing his nerve. _Just say something_. “She, uh, wouldn’t accept two 30% discounts.”

                Dean frowns as he takes a drink of his Gatorade. “What do you mean?”

                “It wouldn’t let me take off 60% at once without an override from a supervisor, and I was afraid if I had to call a manager and make her wait even longer she would like, literally kill me.” Dean snorts, a smile spreading on his face, and it feels like Christmas morning even though Cas knows for a fact it’s not hard to get Dean to laugh. “All it was letting me do was take off 30%. So I took off two of them. Because I thought it meant the same thing. But they wouldn’t accept that and I’m bad at math.”

                “That’s ridiculous,” he says cheekily, and they chuckle together. It’s a little forced, and a little natural, and a little haunting.

                “I had to have Anna come over and do it. I mean, apparently taking off 60% instead of two 30s did save her money, I didn’t calculate it. But I don’t think she would have accepted anything I offered her. I’m just – I’m just a kid too stupid for college, stuck in retail where computers do everything for you,” he says, before he has the wherewithal to shut himself up. “Where it’s okay if you’re bad at math as long as –”

                He cuts himself off. Did he really just say that? Did he really just word vomit about what his worst customer ever made him believe – one of his deepest insecurities – all over Dean?

                Dean frowns again, even harder. “What? Did she say that to you? She called you stupid?” The protectiveness in his voice makes something flutter in Cas’s chest. _Stop, stop, stop. Stop thinking these things._

                Cas sighs and mutters, “Not her.”

                He’s hoping Dean doesn’t hear the underlying meaning in what he said, but he does. Of course he does. “But someone else did,” he says, certain of himself.

                Cas shakes his head and tries to smile, but it surely falls flat. “It doesn’t matter. People are always cruel to retail workers. I’m used to it.”

                “You shouldn’t be ‘used’ to people demeaning your entire existence.”

                “Aren’t you?”

                Dean pauses, his mouth working to form unfinished sentences, before what comes out is, “Shit. I kind of am.”

                “Good to know I’m not the only one whose soul has died here,” Cas says quietly, playing with the paper on his water bottle, and it’s – it’s not a _nice_ sentiment to share, by any stretch of the imagination; it’s actually pretty damn sad – but it somehow feels like it’s tying them together, into something unbreakable.

                Dean laughs softly and looks at Cas, in a way that seems almost significant. He looks at him in a way that makes Cas’s breath shallow, a way no one has _ever_ looked at him. Like he sees something worthwhile, something that makes him want to stay.

                Cas’s heart is beating too fast.

                “Cas, do you –”

                “Dean!” a loud voice booms, interrupting Dean’s gentle sentence, and Cas has to struggle to hold back his growl of frustration at – he turns to look – fucking _Ash_.

                Dean laughs, but it sounds forced and his cheeks look slightly red as Cas watches him put his proverbial mask back on. The one that he dropped for _Cas_.

                “Ash,” he greets him, a little too loud.

                “Skunk ape, Dean. That’s all I’m saying.”

                Cas tries not to glare at Ash.

                “Maybe say more,” Dean suggests, looking everywhere but at Cas.

                “ _Skunk ape_.”

                “What _about_ the skunk ape?”

                “I saw him, that’s what,” Ash says as he gets a Red Bull out of the vending machine. He sits down at the table and kicks his feet up onto the polished wood, and Cas continues to look at him in distaste. “Down at the quarry.”

                “Skunk ape lives in Florida, genius,” Dean says, getting up to clock back in, and Cas’s heart sinks, plummets to the bottom of the ocean.

                Ash’s mouth opens and closes as he struggles to come up with a response. “They – they could migrate, we don’t know.”

                “Okay, Ash. Whatever you say,” Dean replies, clapping him on the shoulder. He doesn’t glance at Cas once before he turns around and walks out of the break room.

                Ash looks at Cas, finally acknowledging that he’s even _there_. “You know, kid, we’re all gonna be dinner for an ancient lizard god one day. Then he’ll see.”

                Cas grits his teeth and gets up without a word, before clocking back in and walking out.

                ***

                It’s another night at the bar, listening to Dean’s conversation with his friends like a complete stalker. Tonight they’re not talking about anything in particular, until he hears from – of course – Ash.

                “Guys, listen. I saw this – this _thing_ down by the quarry…”

                Everyone at Ash’s table groans, probably including Dean. They must all be as tired of hearing about this shit as Cas is. (Logic and reason stand to say he could just stop listening, but…)

                “Ash. You were drunk. You saw a raccoon. Possibly a possum. Most likely a tree branch. Be. Quiet.”

                Cas snorts and takes a swig of his drink, and after a minute of idly tapping his fingers on the counter in a way Claire would probably yell at him for, he feels someone approach him. He turns his head to see who it is, and it’s… it’s _Dean_ , looking beautiful even in dingy bar lighting.

                “Hi,” Dean says, with a short little wave that is completely endearing, as Cas struggles to maintain his composure.

                “Hey,” Cas hears himself say, kind of like an out-of-body experience.

                “Um, is it – is it okay if I sit here?” he asks, pointing to the seat right next to Cas.

                “Y-yeah,” he says, louder. Is this actually happening? “Of course.”

                Dean smiles – it’s small, but it’s still precious, something to hold onto. He sits down and gives Cas a sidelong glance. “Thanks.”

                “No… problem.”

                “So, Cas,” Dean says, his mouth wrapping around his name softly, reverently. Cas feels like he doesn’t want to hear anyone else say his name ever again, only Dean. “Question.”

                Cas presses his lips together uncertainly. His heartbeat is racing so hard he can hear it, and he has no idea what to expect from Dean at this moment. “Okay?”

                “Are you always just gonna sit at the bar by yourself? Or are you gonna come sit at our table with us some time?”

                He lets out a slightly hysterical chuckle as he runs his finger through the drops of condensation around his drink. Dean actually noticed him?

                “I – uh, I – why would I do that?”

                Dean’s face shifts, and Cas can tell he said something wrong.

                “I mean, they’re _your_ friends,” he tries to backtrack, “not mine. I wouldn’t just invite myself into your – your circle, or whatever.”

                Dean chuckles as he bows his head to the bar counter, and Cas takes notice of his profile while he has the chance to stare – the faint lines by his eyes as he smiles, the rough stubble across his cheeks, the freckles littering his cheeks. His _lips_.

                “This ain’t the high school cafeteria, Cas.”

                Cas swallows around his dry throat. “True,” he concedes. “I guess I was just nervous.”

                Dean raises an eyebrow.

                “I was nervous, because… my cryptid knowledge isn’t very up-to-date. I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep up with you guys.”

                Dean throws his head back and laughs, while Cas watches him in amazement.

                “Fucking Ash, man,” Dean mutters, shaking his head.

                “Ash,” Cas repeats in a low voice. Cas still hates him for interrupting Dean’s question. His softly spoken _Cas, do you –_

                Does Cas _what_?

                “So which one’s your favorite?” Dean asks, turning in his bar stool to face Cas head on. It’s bold, but it makes something hot and heavy pool in Cas’s stomach. He does the same, and their knees touch.

                “I don’t think I have one.”

                Dean presses his lips together, biting back a grin. “Mine’s Santa Claus.”

                Cas nearly chokes on his drink as he starts laughing, and Dean smiles at him, looking wonderstruck. Looking at _Cas_ , like he sees something meaningful.

                “I don’t think – Santa Claus is not a cryptid, Dean,” he says quietly.

                “Uh, okay,” he scoffs. “Let’s see.” He pulls out his phone and types for a moment, before reading out loud, “’An animal whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated.’ I must have missed the memo saying we have substantiated proof that Santa exists.”

                “He’s not an animal, so he doesn’t count.”

                “Moth _man_.”

                “ _Moth_ man,” Cas corrects. “He’s still part animal. Where is the animal in Santa Claus, Dean?”

                “He’s probably part, like, reindeer or something, I don’t know,” he mutters, and Cas feels himself snicker. “Whatever. All I know is, animal or not, I fucking hate him.”

                “Hate… who?” He narrows his eyes. “Santa Claus?”

                “ _Yes_ ,” Dean says emphatically. “I hate him and his stupid holiday and everything stupid he represents.”

                “Ah,” Cas says, his confused face straightening itself out. “Not a fan of the holiday season?”

                “Would you be a fan of something your job has conditioned you to associate with death, Cas?”

                Cas squints again.

                “We just talked about this, man. Death. Our souls. They’re dead. Because of Christmas.”

                It doesn’t escape Cas’s notice that Dean _remembered_ , he has actually has kept knowledge of their past conversations…

                “I don’t think it’s Christmas’s fault that our souls are dead, Dean. Or Santa Claus’s.”

                “Then whose fault is it? If it’s not the holiday or the holiday’s keeper…”

                “It’s – it’s the people. The people have killed our souls. The people who yell at us because they read a sign wrong. The people who cause a scene just to get free stuff. The people who tell us they’re better than us, that we’re not good enough, that…” Cas trails off, shaking his head. “I’m probably being too dramatic.”

                They look at each other for a while, and Cas weirdly feels understood in that moment. Like he is, for once, articulating himself clear enough for someone to get him.

                Or maybe it’s just… Dean. Maybe _Dean_ just gets him.

                “I bet Santa Claus runs some kind of underground thing,” Dean says. “Like Fight Club. The initiation is that you have to kill the soul of a sales associate. Your choice of weapon – ranges from just using your voice to using your monthly coupon. Most creative kills get to ride a reindeer.”

                Cas snorts, letting out a genuine laugh despite the anxiety flowing through his veins, and he realizes in this moment that, while Dean is gorgeous and can make Cas’s hands sweat with just a look, he’s also… this.

                He looks at Dean while he’s still chuckling, and Dean is already smiling at him.

                “You should write a book,” Cas says. He doesn’t break their eye contact.

                Dean shakes his head. “Nah. I’m not so good with words.”

                “You seem fine with everyone else,” he says. Then, softer, like an afterthought, “With me.”

                “You’re different,” Dean says, just as low. Cas can barely hear him over the noise in the bar, and he has to convince himself in the space of a nanosecond that Dean said what he actually thinks he said.

                “Yeah?” he asks, certain that whatever the answer is could potentially rip him in two.

                Dean shrugs. “Yeah.”

                Cas’s heartbeat is too fast, too loud, pounding in his ears; surely Dean can hear it.

                “Well would you look at that,” a new voice says, from his right – Charlie?

                Cas turns his head, unwillingly breaking the spell between him and Dean that his friends seem oh so insistent upon ruining. Charlie’s there, Ash standing next to her, and they’re both grinning, looking a couple feet over Cas’s head.

                “Say, Charlie, do you happen to know what that is?” Ash asks.

                “You know what, I think I do,” she replies, sounding excited and – suspiciously sober.

                Cas looks up, following their gaze, and sees a little green leaf hanging over them. It takes a moment to register what it is, but when he does, he’s pretty sure he nearly has a heart attack.

                It’s mistletoe, and hearts just aren’t meant to be put through the ringer like this.

                It’s _mistletoe_.

                Cas looks at Dean for guidance by reflex, and he’s already looking back. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes wide, and when Cas’s lips part in surprise, he follows the movement.

                “Come on, boys, be good sports. It’s a Christmas tradition!” Charlie all but chirps. “Seven years of bad luck if you refuse!”

                But then – Dean _laughs_ , and Cas is too overly stimulated to decipher it; he just takes it as the rejection it clearly is. As evidence that the idea of Dean and Cas kissing is _funny_ to him.

                Cas’s heart cracks, in the very foundation of its being.

                This is a joke to him. To all of them.

                “Excuse me,” Cas gets out, feeling his chin starting to wobble as the words leave his mouth, and if he seriously starts _crying_ over this…

                He pushes the huge door open, gets outside and lets out a heavy breath, as if he’s deflating. This hurts. His chest actually _hurts_. He’s never felt pain this acute and sharp before; he feels like he’s going to die.

                “Cas.”

                Cas squeezes his eyes shut, even as he feels him walking around Cas’s figure, stopping right in front of him.

                “Cas, I’m sorry.” He’s close, if the warmth of his breath on Cas’s face means anything.

                “Dean,” Cas says, pulling away. His voice comes out strained, splintered. “Stop. I get it. You don’t –”

                “Look, Cas, I just – God, _screw_ mistletoe, okay?” he says heatedly. He wraps his fists around the lapels of Cas’s jacket, and Cas’s eyes fly open as his breath is punched out of him. He stares down at Dean’s hands, and then his face, wide, blue eyes looking into green. “If I’m gonna kiss you… it has to be because you want me to.”

                “I – what –”

                “I’m not gonna let my first kiss with you be because my friends think they’re funny,” Dean says, and Cas isn’t certain he’s not just hearing things.

                “You – first – _what_?”

                “And I’m not gonna let a stupid Christmas tradition tell you how I feel about you. I refuse to let Christmas dictate my life anymore,” he says, and Cas can hear the joke in his words, but for some reason, he’s never heard anything he believed more.

                Dean gulps, his eyes flicking down Cas’s face, over all of his features, before settling on his mouth. Cas feels a wave of heat rush through his stomach, and he drops his eyes as well, to Dean’s red, nervously-bitten lips.

                “How do you feel about me?” Cas murmurs.

                Dean ducks his head. “Cas, I – I told you I’m not good with words. Just – tell me…”

                “Kiss me,” Cas breathes, unable to hold back anymore. He lets Dean all the way in, lets him see underneath the mask. “ _God_ , Dean, I just – please.”

                Dean wastes no time; after a lightning-quick meeting of their eyes, where Cas sees everything he’s feeling being reflected back at him in the electric green, Dean pulls him in by the grip still on his jacket and kisses him warm.


End file.
